In the last 12 months US wind powered generators accounted 3% of the total electricity production. Nukes accounted for 20%.

There are currently 65 operational nuclear power plants in the US.

That means 10 nuclear power plants generate as much as all of the wind turbines in the US. Plus nuke output can be varied on demand. Wind power is unpredictable and today the US taxpayer is forced to pay some wind utilities not to produce electricity.

BTW nukes use 1/700 of the land area including additional transmission lines needed for vast wind farms. 60,000 acres of wind farm are required to produce the same power output as a large, 1.2 gigawatt, conventional power plant which occupies less than 200 acres of land. Wind farms must be located hundreds of miles from the cities and suburbs where the electricity is needed. Additional land (greater area than the land needed for the farm) is required for new transmission lines which cost ~ $1,000,000 per mile to install. Up to 50% of the electricity generated can be lost in long transmission lines due to radiation and I2R losses.

Nukes just need water adjacent to the generation site which is also a frequent commodity near large population areas.

I have no truck with green tech: it is just that nukes are a lot greener than either wind or solar. The most efficient solution to a problem is usually the most environmentally sound. Solar and wind are just so inefficient compared to nukes it is hard for them to compete. And nukes could be much more efficient and reliable if a standard design was adopted and built out on a large scale. Nuke efficiency is currently hurt by the use of a myriad of designs each requiring separate, expensive approval and regulation.

All of the issues that you cite above have had minimal impact in the US. A quick look at the actual electricity generation over the last 12 months shows that 10 nukes = entire US wind generation. The fact that Sanders misleads you by using capacity numbers instead of generation data (which is really all we should care about) should make you suspicious of the rest of his story.

It is callous for those in rich countries to spend $ billions more on things like wind instead of nukes to save lives that might be lost (although none have been lost after 60 years of US production) while we starve 4 million people every year world wide.

If you took the difference in development and production costs between wind vs nuke electrical generation you could end starvation world wide, forever. Over 60 years of US nuke history that equates to 240 million people. Is that what you really want?

It is the difference between being environmentally conscious and and eco-maniacal. There is a good treatment of this problem here. It is worth a few minutes of study:

Come on, you are going to ask Bernie Sanders to make those decisions? What is his background to something like that. He doesn't even comment that the reason solar energy prices have come down is due to Chinese manufacturing. Our government subsidies are worthless.

And of course we should eliminate the oil and nuclear subsidies. These are wrong.

I am not comparing to me but to the market. Bernie Sanders is a career politician and has not made accountable decisions in his whole life. Why would we want him making he decisin between solar and wind.

Sanders, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants, was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn, and later attended the University of Chicago, graduating with an Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1964.[5] After graduating from college, Sanders spent time on an Israeli kibbutz, an experience that shaped his political views.[6] In 1964, Sanders moved to Vermont, where he worked as a carpenter, filmmaker, writer and researcher, among other jobs.[5]

Sanders's political career began in 1971, when he joined the anti-Vietnam War Liberty Union Party (LU) in Vermont. In the special U.S. Senate election of January 1972, recently appointed incumbent Republican Robert Theodore Stafford defeated Democratic nominee Randolph Mayor and LU nominee Sanders 64%-33%-2%.[7] In the November 1972 gubernatorial election, Democrat Thomas Salmon defeated Republican Luther Fred Hackett and Sanders 55%-44%-1%.[8] In the 1974 U.S. Senate election, Democrat Patrick Leahy defeated Republican Richard Mallary and Sanders 49%-46%-4%.[9] In the 1976 gubernatorial election, Republican Richard Snelling defeated Democrat Stella Hackel and Sanders 53%-40%-6%.[10] In 1979, Sanders resigned from Liberty Union and worked as a writer and the director of the nonprofit American People's Historical Society.

Last I heard was thorium reactors cut the half life to hundreds of years and some plants can recycle waste. I agree the plants we have now are out of date and badly placed. I have no problem with decommisioning the plants but the benefits of nuclear energy are real. The outer system probe launched decades ago (voyager I think) is still sending data back to us. What other technology could keep a vessel powered this long with no refu#ling or maintanence.

There are ways around that if we invest in the infrastructure needed. In 1967 a nuclear engine was created for use solely in space. For something like that you need to assemble the ship in space. Then you simply package the radioactive materials in a crate that could survive a nuclear blast.

The interview with DU expert US Army Major Doug Rokke was conducted by Dennis Bernstein, the producer of the program Flash Points on KPFA (Pacifica) radio in Berkeley, California, and broadcast on April 17, 2003. I heard it while driving my car, and was so upset that I had to pull over. I had heard of DU munitions, of course, but I thought they were used occasionally to attack tanks and had no idea of how widespread, deadly and permanent their damage was. ECOTECTURE obtained the tapes of the interview and republishes it with Mr. Bernstein's permission.

I am not attacking Sanders personally. I said nothing about his personal attributes. I am questioning his business acumen. He wants the authority to make investment decisions with our money. What is his experience in doing this?

Just like I don't think oil should receive subsidies I don't think, nuclear or wind or solar should receive subsidies. All this does is create corruption. Just look at what is happening in solar. And the same think happened in the 70's the last time we did this.

Our society is not government as every dollar that they take away from the society is used inefficiently.

Let there be a level playing field and the best technology will come forward. Right now, oil is being subsidized so the alternatives can't be pushed forward.

I am not that worried about the Russians and Chinese as they are not free societies and cannot dictate technology. This was proven ultimately by the Germans and the US in WWII. The former had a huge advantage on the US in technology and lost it as government control took over. FDR loosened his controls in '42 when he realized that he wasn't producing. The Russians and Chinese have the same problem.

They very well could be jumping ahead of us but that still doesn't mean that their decision to subsidize solar is the correct one. We don't know what is going to be feasible and viable but if we unleash the power of the people we will find out. Oil has been subsidized for a long time and this had made it a market share leader. How much farther along would we be if it wasn't.

i don't know and there is alot of smart money that is betting against it. I do know that if we subsidize it all it does is drive the price lower and move the rewards to governmental cronies. I don' t think this type of corruption is efficient.

What does the support from Veterans have to do with making asset allocation decisions. I didn't say he was a mean guy. He wants to make investment decisions with a large cash of money, what experience does he have in doing that?